


What's in a name?

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: (off screen), 1970s, Character Death, F/M, Getting Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18306782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: It has been years since they last saw each other; to think it took her father's death to bring them back together.-Joan and Morse meet again at Fred Thursday's funeral. Here's what happens next.





	What's in a name?

**Author's Note:**

> I confess so far I've only watched season 6 and three episodes of season 3 (darn TV scheduling), so I know there are Joan/Morse interactions I've missed, and as such won't be considered in this fic. So it's possibly a bit of an AU.

He's in the condolence line with every other mourner, like his presence here is no more important than her cousin thrice-removed, or the family they lived next door to back when she was a baby. It's just like him, she supposes. So clever, so stubborn, so quick to push forwards – but sometimes, exactly the opposite.

His moustache has gone, she notes, as Helen pulls at her skirts. She runs a hand distractedly through her blonde curls, smiling gratefully at the family friend who scoops her up and distracts her with an apple. She nods, smile stiff as rigor mortis as person after person says sorry, blending into one. She shakes hands. She bears the sympathetic touches to her forearm or shoulder, the people who clasp her hands. She watches people cry, and fiddle with handkerchiefs, and refuses to allow herself to break down. Not yet.

“Miss Thursday,” he says. His face is clear, eyes kind as they always were, and so very familiar. He doesn't try to touch her, but she thinks, out of everyone – barring her husband and Helen of course, or Sam, if he'd been able to make it back – a hug from him might have been just about bearable.

“I haven't been called that for a while.”

He shrugs. “Force of habit. Fred told me of course.” Fred sounds as odd out of his mouth as Mrs Willis would, no matter how used to it she has become otherwise. “Would you-” he inclines his head to the side, “have a minute?” She glances behind him. There are only a couple of people left, awkwardly milling as they try not to listen in.

“Of course. Just give me a few first?”

“I'll wait outside.”

 

–

She takes her time with the last few guests, making sure everyone knows the way to the village hall where they're having the wake. There are too many old colleagues wanting to pay their respects to make it sensible to have it at their house, and she's secretly grateful that the clean-up will fall on someone else. She seeks out Pat, buries her face in his chest for a minute, and hugs Helen tight.

“Dad's old friend wants a quick chat,” she explains, when he asks why they're not already in the car. She stalling, not sure she can face another few hours of meaningless platitudes and chit chat. Equally not sure she can face talking to Morse over the grave of her dead father. She wishes Sam had been able to come. She wishes her mother was still alive.

“You go on,” Pat nudges her, gentle, and a bloom of love flushes through her at the contact. “Helen and I will go get things started.”

She watches them leave, her husband and her bright little girl, hand in hand. It's easy for Pat, of course. He's sad for her, and for Helen, but he's not bowed under any real grief. He'd never got on with her father, for which she doesn't blame him. Pat was never enough for her dad. Never able to measure up to-

“Morse,” she calls, quietly. He is stood over the grave, and if Pat had little grief Morse seems to have too much of it. But of course she knew they were close. Her dad, in hindsight, had probably been almost as much a father to Morse as he had to her and Sam.

“It was too soon.” His eyes are wet, but no tears have yet fallen.

“It was always going to be too soon.”

He laughs, wetly. “Yes, you're probably right.” Suddenly she wants anything but another conversation about her father. As hard as it had been with the other mourners, she can tell it would be a thousand times worse with Morse, and she'd stupidly worn mascara this morning. She couldn't show up at the wake with panda eyes. She changes the subject.

“Why didn't we ever make it work?”

He startles, eyes sweeping to her before skittering away. He puts his hands in his pockets, his shoulders rolling forward slightly. He turns, and they fall into step towards the cemetery gate.

“You and me?” He waits for her confirming nod. “I guess we were never in the same place at the same time... By the time I – realised, you had-” he cuts himself off.

“I should have waited for you.”

“No, never.” His voice is vehement, but he tempers it by jostling her shoulder with his own, makes it almost a joke. “I was a fool, I never deserved you waiting around for me. You waited too long as it was.” She chews her lip, letting him open the gate and hold it for her. “Besides, if you had, you wouldn't have Helen.”

His smile is the same, she notices, enough to make him look like a boy again despite the fact he must be pushing forty-five now. “She's my everything,” she admits, unable to keep her smile inside. She knows its ridiculous, what she looks like when she talks about her daughter.

“Fred was pretty fond of her too.”

“Oh God, he spoiled her rotten, absolutely rotten,” she laughs, then sobers. “He really loved her. She might not even remember him.”

“She will.” His voice is so confident, it makes her believe.

“What about you? A special someone?”

He shakes his head, looking at his shoes for a few steps. “No, never quite happened.”

“Dad never told me of anyone but I didn't quite know whether to believe him. He always had this odd noble look about him when he spoke about you. As if he was protecting you. Or me,” she adds, laughing. “Never sure which.” He smiles at her, but there's something sad back in it now. They stop by his car.

“Let me drive you to the wake.” He holds the door as she gets in, and checks her dress won't be caught in the door before shutting it softly behind her. Gentlemanly. “Are you...” he's obviously trying to change the subject again, “...going to go back to the welfare?”

“No, I don't-”

“You didn't have to leave. They lost a good thing when they lost you.” He pulls away, checking his mirror.

“You think I could have had it all, like these modern women?” She chuckles. “Work, husband, children, all seamless. I'm not sure it really works out that way.”

“So you stay at home.”

She levels him with a stare, but his eyes don't so much as twitch from the road. “There's honour in raising a family.”

“Never said there wasn't,” he responds mildly, glancing over at her quickly, with a soft smile, before returning his attention to the country lanes. “But there's also a damn good brain in that head that could do more than remember a shopping list and get dinner on the table for six.”

“It was my choice.”

“Really?”

It had been. She'd tried to keep working, when they first got married, didn't want to be one of those women who dropped their whole lives before the church bells even started pealing. But there was so much more to do with a husband than when she'd been on her own, or even when she helped out when her mum was ill, keeping her brother and father fed and clothed. And they hadn't needed the money; Pat earned enough to keep them both well looked after. When she'd got the news about Helen, there hadn't really been a choice to make.

“Yes.”

They pull up outside the village hall, and Morse carefully manoeuvres into a parking space, handbrake on but motor running. “I won't-”

“You will,” she grabs his arm, scrunching the suit jacket under her fingers. “You'll walk me in and you'll meet Pat and Helen, and maybe eat a sausage roll and then you can run away as fast as you like, but _only then._ ” She wasn't quite sure what had come over her, but she couldn't step through those doors on her own.

He swallows; she watches his Adam's apple bob. “Then let me accompany you.”

 

–

The crowd inside the hall is thick, making her doubly glad she'd decided not to cram everyone in their end terrace. They get stopped multiple times, once by aunt she barely knows, once by a couple of old coppers who look at her pityingly, like she's still six and sad over a lost stuffed rabbit. They crow over Morse the wonder child while she rolls her eyes. Eventually, they make it to the buffet.

“May as well eat now,” she gestures at the table, laden with food. She'd cooked, then bought things in to supplement, but she was pretty sure every female guest must have added 'a little something' to the pile. “I know what you're like, you won't have anything in at home.”

“You know me too well.” He offers a second plate to her, but she waves it away. The smell is making her feel nauseous. When he straightens up again, plate piled high, she steals a carrot stick and gnaws at it. He chews on a cocktail sausage. “So where's this husband of yours?”

“Right here.”

“Pat!” she exclaims. “Thank you for opening the place up.” Pat glances around, at the mass of people chatting, eating, even laughing. There is some music playing, almost drowned out by the buzz. 

“You did a great job honey. Such a good turnout for your old man.” He rests one arm around her waist, a touch which usually makes her feel grounded. “Who is this, your father's friend?”

“Yes, this is-” _Endeavour_ , her mind supplies, a secret name that so few know. A name she'd fantasised about as a teenager, in her twin bed that she'd imagined a double. Where she'd turn over on a sunny morning and he would be there, sleeping next to her. Her fantasies had always been laughably innocent. She'd have whispered his name while tracing those freckles across his cheeks, down to the tip of his nose. Tickled, his eyes would open, to their clear, kind blue, and he'd kiss her quiet. “-Morse.”

“Morse,” Pat holds out the hand not attached to her waist and shakes Morse's firmly. “Fred spoke highly of you.” The _often_ is left silent.   


“We worked together for a long time. He was a good man.”

“Yes, of course.” There is an awkward pause. “Well, honey, we should do the rounds. Then we can use Helen's nap as an excuse and leave everyone to it.” He's giving her an out, which she wants more than anything, but he's also guiding her away and part of her isn't ready. She wants to watch the crowd from the outside, with a familiar figure warm at her side.

“It was lovely to see you again,” Morse calls, and she smiles, watches him over Pat's shoulder as he abandons his plate full of food and stalks out the door.

 

–

It's strange how quickly things settle into a new routine, and events of great magnitude become background considerations. September dawns, and with it, Helen's first year at school. It is traumatic for both of them, then as the third week starts it suddenly isn't. Joan has time on her hands for the first time in years, the cleaning done quickly without a little one messing things up as fast as she can straighten. She visits the library on a Wednesday now, to avoid the mother and toddler book group they had attended every Thursday. Her Tuesdays – the day they used to meet up with Grandpa for lunch – loom the emptiest.

Perhaps she should go back to work, she muses, stepping into the local park. She has a novel and a sandwich tucked in her handbag, the sunshine an excuse to escape her four magnoliawalls. A park bench somewhere and she'll-

“Miss-” A voice calls but stumbles over itself, cutting itself off. She turns. “Joan,” he finishes.

“Morse. You were going to call me Thursday.”

“Can't quite seem to kick it I'm afraid. And I don't know that Fred ever told me your new surname.”

“Did he look noble every time he avoided the subject?”

He grins down at her. “I am a detective, I expect he thought I could work it out if I really wanted to.”

“So you don't want to know?” He looks at her consideringly as she meets his gaze. The sun is behind him, making something of a golden glow about his curls.

“Do you want me to know?”

She clears her throat and looks away. This feels altogether too much like flirting for a married woman.

“Or perhaps I just call you Miss Joan.”

The knot in her throat clears at his humour. “Like we're in a Jane Austen novel?”

“I'm not sure she ever came to Oxford, but if she had, I'm sure she would have written of it even more often than Bath.”

“Well there I have you beat, because I have it on good authority she did visit Oxford.” He looks mildly perturbed at being corrected, or perhaps at being wrong in the first place, but doesn't ask for her source. He trusts her knowledge.

She fans herself. The sun is rather too hot even this late in the year, and there's little shade in the park. “Would you like to get a drink somewhere?”

He shakes off his discomposure and nods. “And lunch,” he adds. “I was actually on my way to the Turf.” She thinks of the sandwich in her handbag, probably curling in the heat. At least its cheese, rather than anything that will start to smell too strongly.

“Lead on, Mr Bingley.”

“Bingley, really? I always took you for a Darcy girl, Miss Joan...”

 

–

It becomes a new routine after that, every Tuesday, lunch at the Turf. Joan told Pat of their first encounter, and every now and then she'll mention them again, but something tells her to keep it mostly hidden away. She half-lies, with stories of unexpected encounters, or of Morse wanting her help on an old welfare matter, spread over every third or fourth week rather than revealing the truth: a standing weekly arrangement between friends.

Because that is all it is. Morse likes to flirt with her, calling her Miss Joan left and right like it's their private joke, but he flirts with plenty of women. Its the way he charms them. And there is genuine affection behind it with her, she knows, but its all propped up by nothing more than a case of what might have been. She is married. He is in a torrid affair with his work, as usual. Neither of them are pining.

They start by talking about her dad, usually, and he always asks after Helen. But as the weeks go on their conversation widens to the point that she thinks she knows more about current cases at the police station (and he has an intimate knowledge of her mothers' circle attendees private lives) than she does about what Pat spends eight hours a day doing down at the office.

“I spoke to Viv Wall the other day.”

“Oh, how is she?”

“Fine, fine. Well, tired actually. I think maybe she's getting on a bit.”

“Nonsense, she'd only...” she trails off as she does the maths in her head. She's been gone longer than she thought. “Maybe a little bit. Any trouble?”

“Routine, just an under-age detainee who wouldn't tell us his father's name and needed an adult present.” He takes a gulp of his pint. “Wouldn't be surprised if she retired soon,” he continues. “Maybe if there was someone she trusted to take over.”

“I'm not going back.”

“Why?”

Why indeed. More and more she's had visions of herself, smart skirts and heels as she skips up the steps to the old office. She'd felt useful then, really useful for the first (the only) time in her life. She'd stepped out from behind her father's shadow. People who'd looked at her before like she was something to protect – Sergeant Strange, for one – started looking at her like she was a person. Except Morse. He'd always looked at her as a mixture of both.

“Helen is still so young.”

He nods, and lets it go. But the outside intervention has strengthened her visions to the point she's losing hours to them, wasting her days from school drop-off to pick-up.

 

–

It is five to six. She dishes out shepherd's pie and peas, straightens the water jug on the table. A key turns in the lock.

“Honey, I'm home!” He thinks he's funny, she reminds herself, as she tries not to wince at him quoting that old TV show for the fiftieth time. He kisses her cheek, sweeping Helen up into his arms before lowering her to her chair. She digs in to her meal immediately, mashed potato all up one arm. “How was your day?"

“Good,” she answers, absent-mindedly, smiling at her daughter. She sips her water. “The greengrocer's daughter is going to Trinity next year.”

“Trinity? Seems a bit of a waste.”

“Sorry?”

“It'll cost him a few bob supporting her as a student, that's all. Then she'll want to settle down. She may as well just stay in the shop, she'll find someone in a year or two. Pretty face, and a nice girl, if I'm thinking of the right one. Was it Lesley?”

“Laura,” she corrects, poking at her peas. There's not much else to say. “Otherwise I did the ironing.”

He smiles, not noticing the cuff of his shirt is darkened with gravy. She frowns, inwardly, careful to keep her face placid. Wearing your dinner is only cute on a five year old. “You're so good at ironing,” he replies, and she adds an internal eye roll. Of course she is. She gets enough bloody practice. Morse from yesterday's lunch swims across her vision. Rumpled, she thinks, is a good word for Morse. He never looks actively untidy, but you can imagine he's just chased down a suspect, or spent the morning slumped over reports at his desk. If he irons at all, the effect is lost by lunchtime.

“I was thinking I might pop into the welfare office tomorrow,” the idea has only just occurred to her, but it would be nice to see Viv. Especially if she is thinking of retiring, Joan wants to give her her best before she disappears. “A friend told me she may be retiring soon.” She doesn't mention which friend, and doesn't poke too closely at why.

“Retiring... time was women wouldn't retire. It's a shame, she's a good woman. She should have had someone looking after her.”

“She loves her job.”

“Still. Caring for everyone else's children instead of her own. Now there'll be no one to look after her.”

He has several bites left on his plate, but leans over to the dish and shovels more meat and potato on top. It always bothers her that he does that. “I was thinking I might see if they need any help, in the interim. They'll be losing a lot of knowledge when she goes, and I could stop in part time to help out,” now that she's broached the subject she isn't quite sure how to stop, especially as stopping means he would have a chance to respond. If she just keeps going, then the possibility is still alive. “Now that Helen's in school I have a few spare hours each day, and perhaps with the extra money we could take a foreign holiday-”

“No.”

“Pat, it would just be a temporary-”

“Joan.” His voice is kind, but there's that steel in it that tells her there's no room for discussion. “You don't need to work. I can provide for my family,” he sweeps a hand across the room; the table he's bought, the food he's paid for that she's served up. She knows he's proud of what he can do for her and Helen. “And Viv is sensible, she'll leave them well set up. Now. Is there any pudding?”

 

–

“You're quiet today.”

The plate in front of her is empty, she realises. She must have eaten her soup and half a sandwich on autopilot. She grasps her wine glass and takes a gulp. “A lot on my mind, I suppose.”

They had covered Helen and Sam earlier. She can practically hear his brain ticking. “Everything okay with Pat?”

“I said I wanted to go back to work with the welfare.”

“That gre-” he sees her face. “That's _not_ great?”

“Not according to Pat. He won't let me. Shut me down over the shepherd's pie.” Morse bristles, but stays silent. She trails a finger through a patch on condensation left on the table. The varnish underneath is thick, to the point she can dig a fingernail into it and leave a groove. “What would you say if I said I wanted to leave him?”

She hears the sharp intake of breath, but his voice is measured when he speaks. “I'd say that's a big decision to make over one dinner conversation.”

“And if it wasn't just one dinner conversation?” He doesn't answer. She nods, then hangs her head. “I don't think I realised it so much until I started talking to you again.” She laughs, bitter. “He loves me. And he'd never hurt me, or Helen. He's a great dad...” she trails off. “But he never expects anything of me. Except a clean house, a quiet child, and a hot meal. He'll never expect anything of her either.” The sudden realisation sticks in her throat, and she can feel hot pinpricks behind her eyes. “His dream for her is a man just like him. A child just like her.” She feels slightly sick. “A life like mine.”

“And you want more."

“I should want more! So should she!”

“I agree.”

“So you don't think I'm crazy?”

“I think you're a very capable woman, who hasn't needed anyone to look after her in a long time. A woman who can make her own decisions. If you leave him,” he shrugs. “You'll make it.” He takes a long pull of his pint. She wants more wine. Some days, she thinks, they should serve that in pint glasses.

“I'll make it,” she echoes.

 

–

She's never dragged her heels once she's decided on a path, so they don't meet for three Tuesdays on the trot. Joan is busy, finding a flat, getting the deposit from the savings account her father had insisted on holding for her. At the time, it felt like he was keeping her a child. Now, she realises, perhaps he was leaving her a way out. She pulls together the basic essentials of furniture and furnishings, trying to ready a home in an unfamiliar flat.

She tells Pat on a wintry Thursday evening, after Helen has been put to bed. He looks like he wants to cry, but instead bowls past her out into the cold. She hears him come back hours later, but he never climbs the stairs to their bedroom. In the morning, he is gone before she wakes, but an empty whiskey bottle has rolled under the sofa. She places it in the bin before calling the school, explaining. She packs bags for the two of them.

It turns out the welfare is not hiring, even with Viv's departure, thanks to government budget cuts. Instead she takes a job at a college library; Trinity, ironically. It is mainly grunt work; re-shelving, and shepherding scholars out of the doors at closing time, but it is three days a week, from nine until seven. It will pay enough to cover their living costs, and she will be allowed to read on duty if she wishes. It is not difficult work. Viv offers to pick Helen up from school and watch her until Joan clocks off, and Joan hugs the older woman tight in thanks.

 

–

It is Tuesday.

“For the working woman,” Morse places a large white wine in front of her, which she'll have to knock back at quite a rate to make it back to the library for her afternoon shift. “They're out of leek and potato, Miss Joan, you'll have to settle for tomato.”

“Morse...” She traps one of his hands against the table with her own. It is warm, the pulse quick.

“You're all settled?” he asks, as if she'd not moved a muscle. “Your flat?”

“Yes...?”

“And obviously the job is going well.”

“Yes.” He seems to be building up to something.

“You'd say you're standing on your own two feet and all that?”

She grins. “Yes, I think so. I'm practically the new poster child for women's lib. Don't need a man, etcetera. Are you quite all right?”

He smiles, turning his hand over so it's cupping hers. It's the first time, she realises. Despite the years they've known each other, despite the flirting and the looks and the will they won't they – this is the first time he's taken her hand. “Do you want a man?” Her breath catches, and she knows he hears it, because his eyes flick from their joined hands to hers. “Joan,” he starts. “It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Endeavour.”

 


End file.
